GUI Question

[Amerigoware]

Can a program be too pretty?

[wes4dbt]

What part of the GUI do you think is "to pretty" and why???

[Amerigoware]

What part of the GUI do you think is "to pretty" and why???

Ouch! It has metallic gold and a translucent 'glow' around the border.... *shrugs

[dilettante]

From what I can make out... I see a desktop with hilariously incongruous settings, then some travesty of an IDE using a "dank theme," and finally a dog's breakfast of an application.

The application might be salvaged with some effort to at least use clean and consistent menu and toolbar fonts and icons, I suppose. Well, that and add some left and right margin space within the big textbox that is desperately crying out for some. Not sure about that Hot Dog Stand color theme it has either. I cringe to think how it appears if the user has one of the low-vision accessibility color schemes active.

All in all, only a drunk web monkey could be happy.

[Amerigoware]

Ouch. I guess it's a good thing it's just for me. I like my bling.
As for margins, idk.. It's what a richtextbox comes with. I could shrink it a bit as I'm using anchors for top, right, bottom, and left to keep it centered.

I can see you like stuff to be out-of-the-box simplistic. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.

[wes4dbt]

Ouch! It has metallic gold and a translucent 'glow' around the border.... *shrugs

Wasn't meant as an insult. If a person likes metallic gold then they probably would think it's pretty. But "to pretty" that's just an unusual question. Don't think I've ever heard it asked before.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Don't take it too hard, look and feel is something that turns just 10% of us on and turns the remaining 90% off. Dil. hates my GUI designs too and I spend a lot more time than you perfecting all the details to my own taste so that criticism should hurt. However, my graphics are designed to appeal only to a certain sort of person and those that don't like it are not part of the target group. Think of yours in the same light and all is well.

Your GUI might look like a bit of bling to me with no obvious design elements but that's just me and you should simply discount my opinion.

IF you are asking is it possible to build an application that in its mere visual design would fail to appeal to the majority of potential users? - then I'd respond with a resounding "Yes, you've done it.". However, I would also admit the same for my own designs.

[wes4dbt]

Your GUI might look like a bit of bling to me with no obvious design elements but that's just me and you should simply discount my opinion.

Yeah, "Pretty" is way to subjective.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Well, it's prettier than anything I create.

Anybody who has seen any of uncle ber's UI know who his target audience is: Steam Punk. I rather like it, but it's certainly a taste, and not everybody would share it.

I do think that picture suffered by having the window sitting atop an IDE. I can't decide whether Dil really meant "dank", or that was just a typo. It's pretty funny, either way. Lots of people prefer the dark theme. Dil doesn't prefer ANYTHING, as far as I can tell.

Frankly, the form shown looks kind of Apple-ish, to me, which isn't often a bad thing, but will sure rub some people the wrong way. Not Dil, of course, everything rubs HIM the wrong way, but an Apple-ish interface is a particular taste. I'd say it's a good theme. If you toned down the gold a bit, so that it looked more like brass than gold, uncle ber might like it, as well.

[dilettante]

Yeah, don't take it too seriousy. I expect a UI to follow the Windows UI Guidelines for the version your are running on as much as possible.

I guess I just put a lot more weight on function over form. So a "dolly UI" just doesn't impress me much, especially when it has a bunch of mistached colors and fonts or the controls don't act like normal Windows controls.

MS Office applications take too many liberties for my taste. But as the 800 Pound Gorilla they can get away with it. Not many other programs can justify that kind of harlequin esthetic.

[Amerigoware]

If you think it looks bad, you should see the code! Mahahaha!
Let's just say, I'm an amateur.

[dilettante]

I'm also a product of corporate upgringing. Anything with a UI had to undergo approvals of a UI Board made up of user delegates, computer training and help desk staff, disability advocates, and standards committee members.

[wes4dbt]

I'm also a product of corporate upgringing. Anything with a UI had to undergo approvals of a UI Board made up of user delegates, computer training and help desk staff, disability advocates, and standards committee members.

Really. If you don't mind, who did you work for? I might have some complaints about your software. lol

[wes4dbt]

Well, it's prettier than anything I create.

Well then obviously it to pretty.

[dilettante]

Really. If you don't mind, who did you work for? I might have some complaints about your software. lol

I'd be shocked to find any of it in use today. Most of my recent stuff was entirely server-side anyway.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm also a product of corporate upgringing. Anything with a UI had to undergo approvals of a UI Board made up of user delegates, computer training and help desk staff, disability advocates, and standards committee members.

And we all know that committees ALWAYS come up with the best solutions.

Over the years, I've become increasingly aggravated by the way committee design approaches work. All you ever end up with is the sum of all fears. And yet, we still do things that way.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

That is why my eclectic designs exist, partly, probably specifically to be at-odds with the current prevailing design ethos employed by bland corporations.

My approach has always been that anything that is "in fashion" at the current time - to any one person - is actually out of fashion, we just can't ourselves appreciate how much. Only when it becomes quite clear that a thing is no longer fashionable do people drop it like a stone. If we could measure the fashionability of a thing as that fashion moves around the world and give it an absolute value would we be doing the world a favour? (VB6 program suggestion for you).

My SP designs are like a stopped clock in that they are going to be correct or in fashion to the whole world just one time, on one particular day, perhaps. I draw some consolation from that but I will probably be dead when that happens. In the meantime, loads of people love what I create - but just not the majority. The majority are the plebs in any case and I don't really want to appeal to THEM.

[dilettante]

I see some of these designs, and all I can think of is the Family Truckster in the old Chevy Chase "Vacation" movie.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I am sorry but if that was meant to be an insult to my own designs then it went way over my head. I am not American and so these cultural references escape me.

Unfortunately Dil, you have the reputation of disliking all graphical designs regardless of their merits and also having gone a bit grumpy over the years. That combination and the propensity to comment negatively whenever you see a design does tend to reduce the impact of your contribution in this respect - alone.

Armed with the fact that a designer always tends to like his own designs, I come shielded and protected from your
insults. I hope the OP does too.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I am sorry but if that was meant to be an insult to my own designs then it went way over my head. I am not American and so these cultural references escape me.

That's all right, I AM American, I've even seen the movies, and it STILL went over my head.

[wes4dbt]

That's all right, I AM American, I've even seen the movies, and it STILL went over my head.

I thought it was a very funny analogy. Just look at that car, terrible color, 8 headlights. lol Some UI's color schemes remind me of that car and some are way to busy (to me). But hey, there's no accounting for taste so I took it as a joke, not an insult.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm going to have to go watch that movie again, aren't I? I don't have the time, at the moment. I have no memory of whatever you are referring to.

[jdc2000]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...veGriswold.jpg

[wes4dbt]

Yeah, it easy to find a picture of that car. It always makes me laugh. lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi9SA4fgAB0

"If you don't like it now, wait till you drive it"

[yereverluvinuncleber]

At this stage it seems only proper to display the latest version of my most recent design here so that Dil. can comment upon it negatively.



Best viewed in a right click and view image.

[Peter Porter]

In properties I set FormBorderStyle to None to avoid the Windows look. I just like designing everything from scratch!

Images link to actual size, but I plan to make it scalable for higher res monitors.


The video's filename is automatically generated, but you can change it's name if you like.




It was designed for my old school LCD monitor, but it can record from any. As soon as I add more features I'm experimenting on, I'll release it to the public.

It should be version 8 by now. I just never got around to updating it's form's background.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

Peter, can you add your application here too please?

https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....ge8&highlight=

Looks to be a good and useful app.

PS. Oh dear, I see it is VB.NET. Oops.

[Peter Porter]

Peter, can you add your application here too please?

https://www.vbforums.com/showthread....ge8&highlight=

Looks to be a good and useful app.

PS. Oh dear, I see it is VB.NET. Oops.

Should I do it anyway?

I'll think I'll wait until someone starts a thread for VB projects.